Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Moving forward

It appears we want to move forward as a nation – but are we carrying too much baggage to be able to do so? To welcome change is to grow? To paraphrase a contemporary Jesuit author, Jim Martin (whose latest book is the wife and the writer’s shared reading while on a summer break in the Baltic – keen to visit St. Petersburg again because of its wonders, and as importantly, to get a better sense of its market potential for his Eastern European friends).

Development, economic or human, is about growing up? Or until a nation recognizes that the assumptions that dictate their way of life haven’t truly moved them forward, they would unwittingly keep the nation at a standstill? And as many countries have experienced national pride, respect for the culture and belief in themselves – while healthy for a nation’s self-esteem – could conspire and undermine their capacity to excel, e.g., Old Europe? (The writer still remembers the self-doubt expressed many years ago by Europeans including his Belgian friends.) Conversely, countries that update their assumptions are able to progress rapidly – China embracing capitalism, for example; and in fairness, New Europe?

Yet none can claim perfection in their efforts to push progress – because contemporary knowledge is as ‘constant as change’ or why the search for knowledge is evergreen? For example, who best to teach Harvard MBA students about Wall Street white collar crimes than a white collar criminal behind bars? Or tapping an FBI official who did the ‘after-action report’ following 9/11 to teach about ‘connecting-the-dots’? Or why Europeans constantly challenge themselves to be as dynamic as the Americans – i.e., they continue to carry a chip on their shoulder? (While Europeans would say Americans likewise carry a chip on their shoulder – e.g., some may unwittingly seek the perception of power, beyond deeds, and view diplomacy as undermining American power – and thus get the country entangled in wars of choice, with the world paying a heavy price?)

The writer’s Eastern European friends are another example. They are a group of people who had a set of assumptions that dictated their way of life. And when they found themselves in a radically different world they were overwhelmed – yet hopeful that EU membership would bring positive change, but were unsure how!

For instance, how do they sustain positive economic activity given their experience with the Soviet system? (While they highly regard Russian art and culture, they still resent the communist leaders, their mentality and ideology!) Thus they struggled as some of the new ways they were learning simply went against their grain. For example, the concept of higher value-added products in order to generate healthy margins is hard to internalize because their instinct says it equates to higher pricing . . . and they’re a poor country! (What about us Filipinos? Do we need to move beyond the intellectual level too – so the world won’t leave us behind?)

Also, given that their instinct is to develop products more as an art form, they had to learn a bit of science – i.e., product architecture modeling – before they would develop the bias for higher value-added products. Again, a struggle! But they’re a smaller entity than a country that despite the difficulty inherent in change, they are able to internalize the need to question their assumptions and abandon them, if not all together, at least to an appreciable extent.

Bottom line: It will not be easy for us Filipinos to embrace change? But until we do, we would keep throwing the same set of assumptions into the hopper of development. And the outcome would be the same no matter how much we may will it to be different? For instance, to sustain an economic activity and reap its benefits like providing such basics as power, water and rice or a world-class airport or harbor or transport system, our mantra must be the efficient use of scarce resources – i.e., sentiments or ideology or a bias for inclusion won’t work if they’re unsustainable? ‘Growing up’, as parents would say, is a great dose of reality – beyond our mental model and emotional makeup – and thus to ‘charge it to experience’? And ‘to welcome change is to grow’?

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